Crown of Glass

by Isabella August

  He can’t process it.

  Valentine’s dark power rose inside Jenna’s throat, hard and pitiless. You will survive, it whispered to her.

  She opened her eyes, shivering. The blank look on Gabe’s face made her heart give a dull pain, even in the face of that steadying magic.

  Jenna reached out to touch him. He jerked away from her hand, shaking his head. “Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t. I don’t deserve…”

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry,” she choked out. “I should have known, Gabe. You would never…” She pressed her hands gently into his shoulders. “He tried to kill you, Gabe. I can’t believe… how could he?”

  Gabe shivered violently beneath her hands. Silver light continued trickling from his eyes. There were deep, angry splinters running through his soul, clear to her Witchsight. The power of Arcadia had marked him, but he’d endured. Her father’s magic had widened those splinters, tearing at his mind, but he had survived.

  The mirrors in the apartment began to crackle dangerously, and Jenna knew then, with a terrible, sinking feeling, what had taken Gabe from himself.

  All these symptoms, she thought. Dissociating. Forgetting things wholesale. Distancing himself from his emotions, and breaking down under triggers. Her heart clenched in her chest. This is post-traumatic stress disorder. He had a trauma, and he reacted like a totally normal human being.

  The mirror behind him shattered. The light in his eyes dimmed. Empty green glass showed through.

  Jenna threw her arms around him, holding on tightly. “Don’t,” she begged with a sob. “Please, Gabe. It’s not your fault. I know you want to forget. And I get it, I really do. But I can’t let you think this is your fault anymore. It’s not right.”

  Another mirror shattered. Gabe blinked quickly, dazed and confused. “Jen?” he whispered. “Are you really here?”

  “I’m here,” she said hoarsely. “I am, I’m here. I’m not going anywhere this time. I don’t blame you, Gabe, okay?”

  He looked up past her shoulder, and she closed her eyes painfully, knowing what he’d seen.

  “Gabe,” whispered the memory of her voice, horrified. “What have you… what did you…”

  Gabe’s arms tightened on her. Jenna forced her eyes open to see the helpless, agonized look on his face.

  Another mirror shattered. The pain in his face flickered abruptly away. “I killed him,” Gabe whispered back numbly. He glanced down blankly at the shards of glass that littered the floor. “…you should be careful, Jen. You’re going to cut your foot.”

  “Stop,” Jenna told him thickly. “Just stop.” She dug her fingers into his shoulders. “I read it all wrong. I thought you didn’t care. I made it worse, right when you were already falling apart.” She took a shuddering breath. “But this is a normal reaction, Gabe.”

  She grabbed his face in her hands, forcing his eyes to hers. “I’ve been trying to fix you, because I thought Arcadia had done this to you. But things like this… you don’t just fix. And I’m so sorry I tried to make you face it all at once.”

  Gabe lifted one trembling hand to her face. “I have to help you,” he whispered. “I’ve been balancing it all somehow until now, but I need to remember everything if I’m going to save you.”

  Jenna swallowed hard. “No,” she told him softly. “I know most of what you knew, now. You don’t have to face this yet, Gabe. But I love you, and I’m here. And… and I’ll help you put things back together. We’ll take the time, and we’ll do it right, okay?”

  Valentine’s magic surged. A dark, inky blackness bled in at the edges of his eyes. The empty, glassy green there retreated at its touch.

  “I’ve taken my time,” Gabe said hoarsely. “I took too much time. I won’t make the same mistake again.” He pulled her close, holding on tightly. “I can handle this, Jen. I need you to… to finish it. Before I lose my nerve.”

  Jenna swallowed, looking up into the darkness of those eyes. There was a grim surety within him — an awful steel that he never should have needed to build within himself.

  But lots of things are unfair, she thought tiredly.

  Jenna reached her mind out for the magic she’d gathered up. She wove it in with the broken memories, threading them with moonlight. Slowly, she stitched them back into the empty places within him — into the familiar spots where she knew they all belonged.

  Gabe held onto her while she worked. His fingers dug into her shoulders. His body shook like a leaf.

  But he endured it all.

  That beautiful silver light — so brief and luminous within him — failed to return to his gaze. But flecks of glowing, pyrite gold flickered to life in the darkness of his eyes. Slowly — very slowly — that gold overcame the darkness entirely, burning like a brass lantern.

  Jenna’s body quaked with exhaustion. Magic flooded through her veins, leaving her ragged and raw. But she seized on that slim ray of hope, forcing herself to the very edge of her ability.

  You’re my person, she thought through the pain. My reflection. Neither of us can move on while the other one is broken.

  The last awful shard fell into place.

  And the world plunged away, into a hundred thousand reflections.

  Chapter 14

  They clung to one another, in the deepness of the Looking Glass.

  Valentine’s presence had fallen away, but it no longer seemed to matter. They were alone, holding together at the center of a world of their very own. The Looking Glass had not been made for them — it hadn’t been made for anyone, really — but somehow, it had reflected so much of them now that it was surely theirs.

  Gabe pressed his cheek against her hair, breathing in softly. “…hey there, gorgeous,” he mumbled, as the inconstant whispers of the world outside distorted around them.

  Jenna smiled blearily. “Hey there, handsome,” she muttered back. “I think I lost my phone number. Can I have yours?”

  He choked out a laugh. “How long have you been working on that one?”

  “Literally since last night,” Jenna admitted. She leaned against him, drained. He was strong enough to hold them both up, somehow.

  She forced herself to look up at him, though really, all she wanted to do was fall asleep in his arms. Golden eyes looked down at her; a shadowy, molten light danced behind them like fireflies.

  Gabe traced her cheek with his thumb. “I remember,” he said quietly, and she realized she must have had the question written all over her face.

  “We don’t have to talk about it right now,” Jenna told him.

  He shook his head. “I want to. What… what he did to you…” Gabe closed his eyes. “I’m still so angry, Jen. It’s hard to be angry and guilty at the same time, but I found some way to manage it.”

  Jenna swallowed, pressing her forehead to his shoulder. “That’s normal too,” she admitted softly. “I mean… this is all such a normal reaction to something so fucked up. I don’t know why, but I find that weirdly comforting.” She shook her head against him. “It’s not your fault, Gabe. It’s not. He literally got back exactly what he tried to throw at you.”

  Gabe pressed his lips to her hair. “I want to believe you,” he said. A raw, awful pain still lingered in his voice. “But I don’t. I don’t know if I ever will.”

  Jenna set her jaw. “You listen here!” she snapped. “If this had happened to me, Gabe — if he’d tried to kill me, and I’d… I’d accidentally done that. Would you tell me it was my fault?”

  Gabe blinked as though she’d slapped him across the face. “I… no,” he said in horror. “He used you, Jen—”

  “And he would have killed you to cover it up,” she said hoarsely. “And if the Looking Glass hadn’t saved you and you’d died, I would be dead now too, wouldn’t I?” Her muscles bunched up underneath her skin. “Is that what you’d prefer, Gabe? If you could do it all over, would you rather that happened instead?”

  He shook his head slowly. “No. Um. No.” There was a str
ange, dawning awe in his eyes as he looked at her. “You’re a little scary sometimes, Jen.”

  She snorted. “Don’t you dare hold yourself to a higher standard than you’d hold me, Gabe. I am a fully trained cognitive psychologist, and I am not having that bullshit.”

  A weary expression flickered across his face. “You’re right,” he said helplessly. “I’m outclassed.”

  Jenna swallowed as an awful thought occurred to her. “…you don’t think Mom…”

  Gabe shook his head slowly. “Kaitlyn was the one making all the doctor’s appointments,” he told her reassuringly. “I’m sure she knew about your magic, but I don’t think she would have been so determined to find a cure if she already knew the problem.”

  Behind his back, Jenna slowly became aware of a seething, noxious presence. It was hard to see, beneath the frenetic light of the Looking Glass, but she knew the black candle still burned.

  “I should be dead, shouldn’t I?” she asked quietly. “I was supposed to die that night. Why didn’t I, Gabe?”

  Gabe sighed. “I don’t understand all of it myself,” he admitted. “But as soon as I got back, the Lord of the Looking Glass brought the candle down here, beyond the mirrors. After that, he kind of… plucked the memory of you from my head, and made a bunch of reflections of you. I think he’s confused it, mostly. Every once in a while, it manages to latch onto you again, but he’s always been able to divert it eventually.”

  He paused grimly. “I think the Lady of Mourning Glory is getting impatient, though. I can feel her power leaning against the Looking Glass now. She’s burning through reflections more and more quickly. That must be why he had me bring you here — the reflections have more of you in them, as long as you’re touching the Looking Glass. It can mimic you better while you’re physically here.”

  Jenna pressed her lips together. “Why is the candle still burning at all?” she asked. “If one half of the contract is… well, gone.” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word dead. “There’s no point anymore, is there?”

  Gabe frowned. “I don’t think that’s how the bargain works,” he said. “Your father got what he wanted up front. Mourning Glory was just taking her price over a longer period of time.” His golden eyes were troubled. “She has every right to do it, too. Arcadia doesn’t have a normal, human concept of morality. As far as the faeries are concerned, your father owned you outright… and now she owns you in his place. I don’t know why the Lord of the Looking Glass is helping me — according to what passes for logic here, I’m a no-good thief.”

  Jenna’s stomach sank. “All of this is just a stalling tactic,” she said. “That’s what you’re telling me. There’s no cure.”

  Gabe’s eyes hardened. “I’m not letting her take you,” he said. “We’ll find some way.”

  Jenna nodded weakly. Her heart told her that the odds were unlikely. But she didn’t want to voice those misgivings aloud. “Where is Valentine?” she asked instead. “She was in there with us.”

  “That memory isn’t part of the Looking Glass anymore, I guess,” Gabe said. “When it disappeared, we just dropped into the center of the realm. She’s somewhere around here. I think I can find her, if I look.”

  Gold light flickered in his eyes. Images sped up, rushing past them like a river. The power of the Looking Glass doesn’t look the same now, Jenna thought oddly. What we just did… did it change both Gabe and the Looking Glass?

  And why wouldn’t it? Gabe had been entangled enough with the Looking Glass to put it in danger. Stitching his mind back together had presumably fixed what was broken within the realm — but fixing something was, in and of itself, a change. You could put a broken bowl back together, but not without some sort of glue. In a way, the things you fixed always retained the memory of having been broken.

  Jenna was pulled from her thoughts as the images that swam around them came to an abrupt halt.

  Faint light trickled through the darkness from a half-closed door, dusting the figure of a small woman asleep on a tousled bed. Jenna had to double-take just to recognize the woman as Valentine — her hair was neatly combed, and she wore a long, pale shirt that barely covered her thighs. Long, horrid scars crisscrossed her visible skin, but there was a smile on her face. It was the first time Jenna had seen the woman looking anything other than wry, or sharp, or cynical.

  A man had settled himself on the edge of the bed next to her. Pale as a ghost, with striking snow-white hair, his red eyes nonetheless held a soft kindness as he looked down at her.

  A vampire? Jenna thought with a blink.

  “You don’t have to leave,” he told Valentine quietly. “You could just stay.”

  “Wouldn’t that be nice,” Valentine murmured into the pillow. Her smile turned dreamy. “My patron would kill you, though. A lot of other people too, probably, just for th’ trouble.”

  The vampire reached out to brush the hair from her forehead. “I suppose you’ve got good reason to be such a pessimist,” he admitted with a soft smile. “I’ll try not to hold it against you."

  Gabe’s face showed an obvious empathy as he looked over the scene. He sighed. “I almost feel like I should let her stay here,” he said quietly.

  “I heard that, Tootles,” Valentine replied. Her eyes stayed closed though, and the smile on her face didn’t waver. “This isn’t real. It’s nice… but it’s not real.”

  Gabe blinked. “I thought you didn’t know anything about Peter Pan,” he said.

  “It’s amazin’ how quick you can look things up in th’ modern era,” she replied. “I’m old, not helpless.”

  The vampire leaned down to press his lips to her forehead, and she shivered with contentment. Jenna looked away, feeling as though she’d seen something unforgivably personal.

  “He’s still waitin’,” Valentine whispered. “Things aren’t impossible, now. But I still have work to do before I can rest.”

  Valentine opened her blind eyes, and Jenna saw a hint of that same gold hue flash within her soul. There was a dark, fatalistic determination in her expression that Jenna now knew more intimately than she’d ever expected to.

  “Let me help,” Jenna said. She surprised herself with the words.

  Valentine laughed. For once, it sounded pleasantly surprised. “You’ve got problems of your own,” she said. “Try not to die in th’ next little bit, an’ maybe we’ll talk. Until then…” She pushed herself slowly up off the bed. “The Ice Queen an’ I ‘ave an understanding.”

  Jenna smiled wryly. “Yeah,” she sighed. “That sounds like Lainey.”

  Valentine stood before them both — small, barefoot, wearing only an overlarge shirt. Somehow, it all failed to make her any less intimidating. “Get me out of here, Tootles,” she said to Gabe. “I’ve had enough languishin’ in faerie realms to last a lifetime.”

  Gabe opened his mouth to reply… but he paused suddenly, with a confused expression on his face.

  The bedroom from Valentine’s memory fell away, shattered into whirling motes of light.

  A rush of heat and disorientation slammed into Jenna, driving the breath from her lungs. She sank down to the floor — but Gabe caught her against him, holding her against his shoulder.

  Somewhere deep within the Looking Glass, a black candle flared into an incandescent flame.

  Valentine’s sightless eyes widened. She was clad in black from head to toe once again, her mirrored shades perched at the edge of her nose. “There’s another faerie lord in th’ Looking Glass,” she said. “How? Surely, your patron didn’t invite one into his realm.”

  “She’s come to collect Jenna personally,” Gabe whispered. His voice shook on the words. “I don’t know how she’s done it. But Mourning Glory is here.” He shoved Jenna toward Valentine, who caught her shoulders with her hands. “Please watch her. I… I have to go.”

  “Go and do what?” Jenna gasped out. “You’re not taking on a faerie lord, Gabe.”

  “I’ll do whatever I have to,” Gabe gr
itted out. “Stay here.”

  All he did was take one step away from them — but it was enough to make him vanish into the wild, shifting images of the Looking Glass.

  With great effort, Jenna struggled back to her feet. I’m not totally useless, she realized. Whatever the Lord of the Looking Glass did, it’s still holding off that candle, for now.

  “This is crazy,” she said hoarsely. “I’m not letting him do this alone.”

  Valentine raised one eyebrow sardonically. “And what’s your better plan for takin’ on the Lady of Mourning Glory?” she asked. “Please tell me you ‘ave one, if you intend to drag us both out in front of her.”

  Jenna closed her eyes, with a sinking feeling.

  “…the Lord of the Looking Glass owes me a favor,” she said. “Any one thing I want from him.” She swallowed down her bitter disappointment. “I’ll ask him to invite Lord Blackfrost inside.”

  I was so close to freeing you, Gabe. I’m so sorry.

  Valentine jerked her head in a short, approving nod. “Not bad,” she rasped. “All right. You’ll have to get us out, though.”

  Jenna drew on her magic, gritting her teeth against the way it burned through her veins. She grasped at the memory of Gabe’s departure, throwing up a phantasm of his figure as he strode through the Looking Glass, back toward the false Metropolitan.

  Valentine hauled Jenna up by the arm and stalked forward, following the path laid out by Gabe’s memory. Wild bits and snatches of imagery assaulted their senses as they went. Once or twice, Jenna nearly lost control of her divination, as the heat within her surged — but she managed just barely to cling on to the spell, long enough for Valentine to break the surface of the Looking Glass.